OUR BABIES.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVIII, Issue 44, 20 January 1938, Page 13

OUR BABIES.

(By “Hygeia.”) Published under the auspices of the Royal New Zealand Society lor the Health of Women and Children (Plunket Society). “It is wiser to put up a fence at the top of a precipice than to maintain an ambulance at the bottom.”

CLOTHING, AVRAPS, ETC. Railway carriages may be draughty, and yet are hard to ventilate ana apt to be stuffy. A good deal of ingenuity and tact are necessary to mane the best of the conditions. It is risky to let children get over-heated. Try to adjust their clothes to suit the time of day and the temperature, and to take them out for a run on the platform if possible whenever there is a sufficiently long stop. Needless to say a plentiful supply of napkins for the baby is a necessity. A mackintosh bag is the ideal way to keep wet napkins when travelling, but if this is not procurable it is a good plan to make tight little parcels of them in several thicknesses of old newspaper. You will find a bundle of old newspapers will come in handy in more ways than one. A light rug and cushion are most necessary for the comfort of the small child, and with these and a spare seat the matter of a daytime sleep is simplified. SLEEP. It is all-important to ensure some sleep for the little ones if over-fatigue and fretfulness are to be avoided. This may be very difficult if the train is crowded, but sometimes a bed may be improvised by placing a wide board between a seat and the one immediately in front of it. Pushed up against it and the outer wall of the carriage, and with a cushion and rug upon it, this makes a comfortable enough bed for the toddler—one which is perfectly safe if the board is well wedged and a suitcase is propped upon the outer side to prevent a tumble. THE USEFUL DRESSBASKET.

The dressbasket is invaluable when travelling with a young baby, making as it does a comfortable bed and a reee-tacle for all the baby’s clothes. AVe have travelled with babies by. train and boat—healthy, normal babies and tiny weaklings—and have found that they need not he moved at all, except at feeding times, but will sleep and. lie a-wake quite contentedly, rather enjoying the constant movement. The result is the minimum of fatigue for mother and baby—very different from the utter exhaustion of both, when the baby has been nursed all day, restless and irritable because of the complete reversal of his ordinary routine. Tiny babies may be “packed” in the dressbasket before starting. The improvised cradle can easily tie carried for short distances by one person, and the baby is kept uniformly warm and protected from wind and draughts. Next to the dressbasket probably the most useful piece of luggage is the canvas carryall which conveniently accommodates all the knobby and awkward last articles. A few simple toys and picture books, a puzzle perhaps, and a block and pencil form part of the necessary paraphernalia, but most children will be interested, for hours in watching the novel sights out of the carriage windows.-

SEA TRIPS. A sea trip (unless the mother is a bad sailor) does not present nearly so many difficulties as_ a long train journey, especially if it is a night passage, as so many of our inter-island passages are. Children a.re comparatively rarely seasick, and there is room for them to spread out and lie down comfortably. „ , , , Very occasionally we find children who are habitually train and car sick, and the only thing to do'is to give very light food before starting and to manage some means of allowing the child to lie down. In conclusion, one might remark that the mother who has trained her children in obedience, regularity and good habits generally, will reap her just reward when holiday travelling time comes round. The long dav wall pass without unbearable exhaustion on anybody’s part —parents, children, or fellow-travellers.